Can you help me?

Recently I read an account from a mother of a toddler who wrote about her conversation with the little girl.  “Mom, can you do me a favor?” “Sure,” the mother responded.  The little girl asked, “Can you help me clean up?”

How cute is that?  The little girl was imitating her mother who has probably asked her that question ever since she could toddle. 

In the universe of a child, Mom is the sun and Dad is the moon.  The child always wants to be near Mom and wants to imitate everything she does.  Eventually he or she will switch the celestial orbs and Dad will become the sun and Mom the moon, but in those beginning months and years, Mom is the center of a child’s everything.

Jesus told his disciples that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, all must become like little children. To long to be near the Lord and to imitate all that He has done is to enter the Kingdom. 

Jesus also said that the Kingdom of God is within us and to do as this toddler manifests the Kingdom for us and to others.

If we all who profess to be Christians truly acted like her in our actions and in our wills we would experience what Jesus longs us to experience. It would be peaceful and heavenly.

We would not have the in-house fighting, the church splits, the back stabbing, and all the things disgruntled, bad children do to each other.  

In this Christmas season can we turn our attention to the lowly stable where Jesus’ mother and Joseph cradle the Kingdom of God in their arms? Can we put down the sharp words and the knives and instead imitate the Lord who will ask us in love, Can you do me a favor, can you help me clean up?”